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Sharif Abdel Kouddous: In Gaza, Unrelenting Israeli Assault Causes "Grave Humanitarian Crisis"
Amidst talk of a potential ceasefire, the Palestinian death toll has passed 815 in Israel’s relentless bombings of the Gaza Strip. On Thursday, at least 16 civilians died and more than 200 were wounded when a United Nations shelter was bombed in the Gazan area of Beit Hanoun. Palestinian officials have blamed Israeli tank shelling, while Israel has suggested militant rockets were at fault. Reporting from Gaza City, Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous describes visiting the morgue where bodies are being taken, as well as a children’s hospital in northern Gaza that was severely damaged Thursday in a nearby air strike. "If the ceasefire falls apart, then we can only imagine that an escalation of the ground offensive — that’s what Israel has declared — will be in the cards," Kouddous says. "We are looking at a very grave humanitarian crisis."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: The Palestinian death toll from Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip has passed 815 as new attacks kill more civilians and spark the largest West Bank protests in decades. On Thursday, at least 16 civilians died and over 200 were wounded when a United Nations shelter was bombed in the Gazan area of Beit Hanoun. Palestinian officials have blamed Israeli tank shelling, while Israel has suggested militant rockets were at fault. The U.N. has declined to directly accuse Israel but suggested Israeli shelling is responsible. Two Palestinians were killed Thursday night near the Qalandia checkpoint in the West Bank, and more than 200 were wounded when Israeli soldiers fired live ammunition at thousands of protesters who marched from Ramallah toward Jerusalem. More protests are happening in the West Bank today.
Meanwhile, Secretary of State John Kerry remains in Egypt, where ceasefire talks are underway. The Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz reports Kerry has drafted a new ceasefire proposal and is waiting to hear back from Hamas via the Qatari and Turkish governments. Hamas has demanded the lifting of the seven-year blockade of Gaza as a condition for a ceasefire.
For more, we go directly to Gaza City, where we’re joined by Democracy Now!’s Sharif Abdel Kouddous.
Sharif, can you talk about what’s happened since we last spoke 24 hours ago?
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, Amy, right after I spoke to you, news broke of that shelling of the U.N. school in Beit Hanoun, which is in the north of Gaza. And we rushed to the hospital in Beit Lahia, the biggest hospital in the north, where the dead and wounded were being brought. Really heart-wrenching scenes, many women and children being brought in on stretchers, wounded. I met one man, a 21-year-old by the name of Hussein Shinbari, who had lost his mother, his three siblings, all under the age of 18, and his father’s second wife.
And multiple witnesses said that they had sought shelter in this U.N. school and that they thought they were safe there and that they were told to gather around 1:30 or 2:00 p.m. in the schoolyard to be taken to another school because there was some clashes in the area and shelling in the area. And at some point, multiple explosions hit the schoolyard. The Israeli military has alleged that it—initially alleged that it may have been an errant Hamas rocket, but the fact that there were multiple explosions in the same area belie that claim. And the Israeli military later acknowledged last night that it did fire into the area in response to hostile fire.
In the morgue of the hospital, I saw at least one baby—she must have been no more than one or one-and-a-half years old—who was killed.
And so, this was somewhere where, you know, some of the poorest people from Beit Hanoun had gone. They don’t have money to go anywhere else. They don’t have relatives to stay with. And this was a place of refuge that they had sought, and they came under this attack. And as you mentioned, 16 were killed and over 200 injured.
Also, late last night—well, not late, during around sunset time, there was a very large airstrike on a house in the Tuffah neighborhood of northern Gaza, of northern Gaza City. And the force of the blast severely damaged a children’s hospital, the Muhammad al-Durrah Children’s Hospital, that was just tens of yards away. I visited this morning. The ICU unit was completely destroyed inside, all the windows blown out. The window frames were toppled over cribs. One child, the director of the hospital told me, was two-and-a-half years old and was being intubated at the time of the attack. And the doctor was blown back by the force of the blast. Glass flew all over the baby, and the baby was killed.
So, this is continuing as we speak. There’s still the sound of drones in the air. There’s heavy shelling across the border area with Israel. And as these negotiations for a ceasefire continue, the bloodshed is also continuing.
AMY GOODMAN: Sharif, the issue of this ceasefire, can you talk about what you’re hearing so far? Secretary of State Kerry is in Cairo right now. What people are saying in Gaza City?
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, the Israeli Security Cabinet is scheduled to convene at 3:00 p.m., which is right now, to discuss the proposal for the ceasefire. One of the main elements of this ceasefire is—well, it’s a proposal to halt hostilities for a week, under which negotiations will continue. One of the conditions of it is that Israeli troops remain in Gaza and continue to search and destroy tunnels. This is Israel’s main objective, its declared objective, in this war. And so, this is causing a lot of rejection by many of the Palestinians that I’ve spoken to here. To them, it sounds like they just want Hamas to lay down its arms while Israel continues its military campaign. So we’ll have to see. There’s been indications from Khaled Meshaal, Hamas leader, that he’s open to some kind of humanitarian truce. But they have held out for their main condition for a ceasefire, which is that the seven-year siege of Gaza is lifted.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell us more stories of the people that you have met, and particularly what the hospital is like?
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, Amy, any hospital you go to in Gaza, you will see many children wounded. You will see many innocent civilians who have been caught up in this bloodshed. It’s almost difficult not to see dead people in Gaza over the last few days. And really, the number of children that you see wounded, the number of children that I’ve seen killed has been really astonishing.
And yesterday also, there was a much fiercer campaign and attack in, as I mentioned yesterday, in Khan Younis, in Khuzaa, where Israeli troops moved in. And this is near the border in southern Israel. And people described a nightmarish ordeal of 24 hours trying to get out; of moving from house to house seeking shelter and each house being shelled; of Israeli troops knocking on doors and taunting the men to come outside; of arresting men from their homes; of people trying to escape tank fire, walking with—holding white flags in the air, with their hands in the air like prisoners of war. And these are clearly civilians—women and children and men. Men took off their T-shirts and put their hands in the air to walk out.
And there’s many dead and wounded being left behind. I was just at the Shifa Hospital right now, and they are still bringing bodies in from the Shejaiya neighborhood, which was attacked by the Israeli military with a lot of indiscriminate tank shell fire on Sunday. And these bodies are decomposing, and they’re still being brought in. So we’re looking at a very grave humanitarian crisis.
AMY GOODMAN: The power—the issue of power and the power plant bombed?
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Right, Gaza’s only power plant was struck by three shells a couple of days ago, that provides about 30 percent of electricity to the Gaza Strip. Gazans now get about four hours of power a day. And power also severely affects water supply, for the pumps to pump water to the 1.8 [million] Palestinians. About 1.2 [million] Palestinians have no clean access to water in Gaza. I spoke to the head of the water utility here, who said that on average right now Palestinians get three hours of water every three days. So, you can imagine what that’s like for many people. When they do get water, they have to fill up bottles and jerrycans. And many people haven’t showered for days. It affects sanitation issues. And these are very basic human rights. And the very heavy displacement that has happened, over 150,000 people being displaced, has only exacerbated these problems.
AMY GOODMAN: And the effect of the mass protest in the West Bank, the largest protest that has been seen there in years, on the people of Gaza? Did word get through?
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Word did get through, and people here have expressed joy at the act of solidarity that was shown in the West Bank, that people are rising up and supporting their cause. And we’ll have to wait and see where this takes us. Will this ceasefire come into effect? And if it does, it’s only scheduled to be into effect on Sunday. And if we look at the past military campaigns on Gaza by Israel, it usually ramps up its violence as a ceasefire approaches. So I think, in many scenarios, we’re going to see a ramping up of violence going into Sunday. If the ceasefire falls apart, then we can only imagine that an escalation of the ground offensive—that’s what Israel has declared—will be on the cards.
AMY GOODMAN: Sharif Abdel Kouddous, thank you for joining us—stay safe—reporting to us from Gaza City. When we come back, we go to the spokesperson for the United Nations organization that runs the school that was just shelled, killing 16 people, wounding hundreds. Stay with us.
"No Safe Place": After Deadly Attack on Gaza School, U.N. Warns 150,000 Seeking Shelter are at Risk
At least 16 people were killed and more than 200 injured Thursday when a school used as a United Nations shelter came under fire in Gaza. Palestinian families displaced by the assault had reportedly gathered to move to a safer area when the school was hit. Palestinian officials have blamed Israeli tank shelling, while Israel has suggested militant rockets were at fault. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has declined to directly accuse Israel, but says it gave the school’s coordinates to the Israeli army numerous times. "Within Gaza, there is no safe place," says Christopher Gunness, UNRWA spokesperson. "If the parties to this conflict have shown themselves callous enough to be able to hit a clearly designated, clearly marked U.N. compound where hundreds of people have come to take sanctuary, we cannot guarantee anymore the safety of our installations." Gunness says the number of people now seeking shelter amidst the violence has swelled to 150,000.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: On Thursday, at least 16 people were killed, more than 200 injured, when a U.N.-run school used as a shelter came under fire in Gaza. Palestinian families were in the school in Beit Hanoun fleeing Israel’s offensive against Hamas militants. The director of UNRWA operations in Gaza, Robert Turner, said the coordinates of the school had been given to the Israeli army numerous times.
ROBERT TURNER: This school was a designated emergency shelter, which meant that we had given the Israeli authorities, the IDF, the coordinates of this school on 12 separate occasions, most recently 10:56 this morning. They were fully aware that this was a shelter. We knew that the situation in Beit Hanoun was deteriorating from a security standpoint. So over the course of the day, we had been trying to coordinate a window, a period during which we could withdraw our staff, and any displaced people who choose to go to a safer location would be able to leave. We were never conferred that window, that time period.
AMY GOODMAN: That was the director of UNRWA operations in Gaza, Robert Turner. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon strongly condemned the shelling of the school in Gaza Thursday.
SECRETARY-GENERAL BAN KI-MOON: I was shocked and appalled by what has happened in the Beit Hanoun UNRWA school. It’s totally unacceptable. I have condemned it strongly. We are now at the 16th day, and tomorrow will be 17th day. During those days, Secretary Kerry and I and many world leaders have been working tirelessly to bring this unacceptable, intolerable situation to an end as soon as possible. We have not yet reached there.
AMY GOODMAN: That was U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. To talk more about this attack, we’re joined by Christopher Gunness, the spokesperson for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, for Palestine Refugees.
Welcome back to Democracy Now!
CHRISTOPHER GUNNESS: Thank you very much.
AMY GOODMAN: Describe what you understand happened.
CHRISTOPHER GUNNESS: Well, we made the—we gave the GPS coordinates, the precise GPS coordinates of a U.N.-designated school—it had a blue U.N. flag on the top of it—to the Israeli army over a period of hours. We appealed to them, we begged them, we pleaded with them to allow a humanitarian pause, a window of opportunity, so that women, children, men, civilians, the sick, the elderly, babies, the dying could be let out of the conflict zone. We appealed desperately. We explained the situation at the school. But no answer came back that was positive. In the end, we could not do that civilian evacuation, and the consequences of that were absolutely tragic. The carnage, the pitiless carnage that you saw on your screens yesterday, was the result.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain what it is—who was in there? How many refugees had taken shelter in this school?
CHRISTOPHER GUNNESS: Well, let me break some news here. The number of people sheltering with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Gaza has now gone over 150,000. That’s fast approaching 10 percent of the population in Gaza. These are desperate, traumatized people who had fled from their homes in response to the dramatically escalating Israeli ground offensive. They are in areas in schools where buildings were meant to accommodate a thousand students or so a day coming in in the morning, leaving in the afternoon. They’re now overrun with people who are staying there 24/7, some for the 17th day.
There’s a desperate need for sanitation, for water. Don’t forget that because of the blockade of Gaza, 95 percent of the water is undrinkable. So, in these designated shelters, you turn on the water, turn on the taps, and salt water comes out. So we have to truck in every single liter of water to 150,000 people. That’s just the water. There’s food, as well, that we need to bring in, mattresses, sanitation equipment—all sorts of things that people staying in these shelters—frankly, in a war zone—desperately need.
And now it seems that there is nowhere safe in Gaza. We’ve been hit, and it seems that every single one of our over 80 shelters, all 150,000 of those individual lives taking shelter with us, are today at risk.
AMY GOODMAN: And the Israeli military saying that perhaps this was a Hamas rocket that hit the UNRWA shelter?
CHRISTOPHER GUNNESS: Well, Qassam rockets are notoriously inaccurate. So the idea that within a few minutes a group of Qassam rockets could hit roughly the same area seems beyond miraculous. But if that’s what the Israeli army and military spokesman and others, like Mr. Regev, were saying, that’s fine. But, you know, it’s perhaps useful to ask them why it is that weapons, when they fly into Israel, it’s said that they’re completely inaccurate; apparently they can all land in roughly the same space within a matter of minutes yesterday in Beit Hanoun. I think that needs some kind of unpacking.
AMY GOODMAN: And why people come to this school, the Palestinians? Who were these Palestinians who came to the school in Beit Hanoun?
CHRISTOPHER GUNNESS: These are ordinary residents of the areas around Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza. That area had been particularly affected by the Israeli ground incursion, so—offensive. So these are people who had been traumatically and dramatically affected. They had left their homes. Many of these are refugees already, dispossessed, stateless people. And they fled their homes, many of them under fire, grabbing their children, grabbing whatever possessions they could take as they ran. These are deeply scarred people. There are scars you can see and scars you can’t see. And I fear that the scars you can’t see are considerably deeper than the scars you can. And, you know, let us be mindful of the appalling scars we saw yesterday.
AMY GOODMAN: On Tuesday, UNRWA issued a press release saying rockets had been discovered for the second time in one of its schools. According to the press release, the vacant school is situated between two other UNRWA schools that currently each accommodate something like 1,500 refugees, internally displaced persons. The release also said that because staff were immediately evacuated, the number of rockets could not be confirmed. Can you clarify, Christopher Gunness?
CHRISTOPHER GUNNESS: Absolutely. What happened was we discovered that there was a cache of rockets. Now these are notoriously unstable devices, so we immediately evacuated the school, and we put a guard on the gate. What happened—and we began consultations, by the way, to find international experts that would be capable of making these weapons safe. What happened was, overnight, a group of refugees attempted to flee and break into the school. So we, of course, had to go back into the school. And at that point, we discovered that the weapons had gone missing. We notified all the relevant parties. We notified, in particular, the office of the secretary-general. There has now been a major review. The secretary-general has ordered that U.N. Security and the United Nations Mines Action Service are involved. So there’s now a root-and-branch review of exactly what happened. There are international experts on the way.
And, of course, the hope is that we don’t have a situation where militant groups are able to go into mutual U.N. compounds and hide these weapons. We came out very strongly in condemning them. We have been very clear that this is a flagrant violation of the neutrality of U.N. premises. And we’ve called on those groups or groups or militants—we’ve demanded that this should never happen again. It is imperative that the parties, that all warring parties to this conflict, respect the sanctity of civilian life, the inviolability of United Nations property and compounds, and that there is respect under and according to international humanitarian law for the protection of international workers, because if that is not respected, look at the appalling, pitiless consequences that we saw yesterday—that callous attack, that callous shelling, should I say. We’re not saying who did it, but we want an investigation. We need to find out irrefutably who was responsible.
AMY GOODMAN: To be clear, that U.N. school yesterday that was attacked, where 16 people were killed, hundreds wounded, was not the one you’re talking about where there were rockets inside.
CHRISTOPHER GUNNESS: No, Amy, absolutely right. The places where the weapons caches have been found were schools which had been closed down for the summer. These schools were regularly inspected by UNRWA, and it was in the course of these regular inspections that the weapons were discovered. These were not places where refugees had taken shelter. And to be clear, there is absolutely no evidence that there were rockets in the school that was hit yesterday or indeed that there were militants in the school firing rockets. And indeed, throughout the last conflict, Cast Lead, in 2008, 2009, or should I say the one before last, although Israeli spokespeople made accusations that there were militants in UNRWA compounds, not a jot of evidence was ever produced to substantiate these false and very damaging allegations against the United Nations.
AMY GOODMAN: Other schools during this conflict, other U.N. schools that are serving as shelters for hundreds, for thousands of people, have they been hit?
CHRISTOPHER GUNNESS: They have. In the last week, there have been three direct hits by incoming Israeli air fire onto two of our installations, our schools, where in one case about a thousand displaced people were taking shelter. Five people were injured. In another place, 300 people were taking shelter, and one small girl was injured. And by the way, Amy, when we went back to investigate that, we cleared a two-hour window in which a clearly marked U.N. vehicle could go back. We cleared that with the Israeli army. When we were there, there was further incoming fire, and one of my colleagues nearly lost his life. This highlights the need for the parties to abide by their obligations under international law.
AMY GOODMAN: What are you hearing of a ceasefire? And what do you think needs to happen, Christopher Gunness?
CHRISTOPHER GUNNESS: We are a humanitarian organization, and we don’t have a seat at that ceasefire talks. What we do is deal with and we mitigate the effects of the failure of the politicians and the peacemakers. We pray that there will not be failure. We are hearing what you are hearing, that Eid will bring with it perhaps some kind of cessation of hostilities. I have no special information on that. But I can tell you that the 150,000 people taking shelter in our schools, all of them potentially victims of what we saw in Beit Hanoun yesterday, are trembling, are fearful, are traumatized and are desperately hoping that that ceasefire will indeed hold.
AMY GOODMAN: And what do you tell Palestinian refugees who are leaving their homes, who are told, instructed by the Israeli military, with calls, with pamphlets that are dropped—where do you tell them to go, if they’re bombed when they go to the designated shelters?
CHRISTOPHER GUNNESS: It’s up to individuals to make their own autonomous choices. It sounds irresponsible, but frankly, we can’t say. For a start, Gaza has a fence around it. It’s unique in the annals of contemporary warfare in being a conflict which has a fence around it, so there is nowhere to run. But even within Gaza, there is no safe place. If the parties to this conflict have shown themselves callous enough to be able to hit a clearly designated, clearly marked U.N. compound, where hundreds of people have come to take safe sanctuary, we cannot guarantee anymore the safety, the safe sanctuary of our installations. It is utterly appalling that in a war zone today, with so many United Nations-assisted beneficiaries, so many U.N.-designated safe shelters, that this sort of thing is happening. It is appalling. It is condemnable. And it has to stop. Enough civilians, enough women, enough children, enough young men who are not involved in the conflict, the elderly, the sick, the dying—they have suffered enough. Enough is enough.
AMY GOODMAN: And your response to the Israeli military saying they’re engaged in precision bombings; Hamas uses Palestinians as human shields?
CHRISTOPHER GUNNESS: Well, if precision bombing has led to a situation where the majority of those killed are civilians, one has to ask just how precise those precision bombings are.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you for being with us, Christopher Gunness, spokesperson for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, known as UNRWA. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. An UNRWA facility, a shelter, has been hit in the last 24 hours, 16 Palestinians killed, hundreds wounded.
Turning Point? Largest West Bank Protest in Decades Raises Spectre of a 3rd Intifada
Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip has triggered the largest West Bank protest in years, with more than 15,000 people marching Thursday from Ramallah toward Jerusalem. Two Palestinians were killed and more than 200 were wounded when Israeli soldiers fired live ammunition. We go to the West Bank to speak with journalist Amira Hass, Ha’aretz correspondent for the occupied Palestinian territories. "There were whole families, and women and men, traditional and modern, and middle-class and workers. Everybody went very determined to show that this is enough," Hass says.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to the West Bank, which saw the largest protest in years Thursday night. Up to 50,000 people were said to have marched from Ramallah towards Jerusalem. Two Palestinians were killed and over 200 were wounded when Israeli soldiers fired live ammunition. More protests are happening in the West Bank today.
For more, we are joined on the telephone from Ramallah by Amira Hass, the Ha’aretz correspondent for the occupied Palestinian territories, the only Israeli Jewish journalist to have spent decades living in and reporting from Gaza and the West Bank.
Amira, describe the protest last night.
AMIRA HASS: It was less than 50,000, but it was really high-spirited. Everybody felt that there is a big change now happening. Everybody who—the people who went, there were whole families, and women and men, and traditional and modern, and more upper—middle-class and workers. Everybody went, very determined to show, not so much to the Israelis, I think, but to the Palestinian Authority, that this is enough, that their unforgivable silence, especially during the first week, and their inability to say that this is the people that is being murdered in Gaza, and it’s not a dispute between Hamas and Fatah, that this has to be stopped. This is how I see it. Of course it was also a message to the Israelis.
And today, as you said, there are demonstrations all over. I just returned from a very silent, very—not depressed, but stressed funeral of the guy who was killed in that yesterday. It’s a kid that’s 17 years old from Qalandia refugee camp. And people feel that there is—it is a turning point. That’s for sure. That’s a turning point in Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, there are demonstrations. In Jerusalem, youngsters, I heard, forced their way to al-Aqsa, because they are not allowed to get into prayers into al-Aqsa, so they forced their way through the police checkpoint. So things—certainly things are changing, and things are changing because people also are so shocked by what is happening to their people in Gaza, and they are unable to do a thing for them.
AMY GOODMAN: What was the Israeli military response to the protest, Amira?
AMIRA HASS: I went a bit late. I mean, I wasn’t, of course—I wouldn’t have gone to near the checkpoint, but I know that, OK, youngsters reached the checkpoint rather early, when the demonstrations started some three or four kilometers to the north. And they started with clashes, but they were—as a friend told me, there was no danger to the life of the soldiers, but the soldiers immediately started shooting live ammunition and a bit rubber-coated metal bullets. So kids—when I was walking towards the place, I’ve already heard several ambulances going back and forth, carrying people who were injured.
And later on, I was in the hospital, because a friend—a child of a friend of mine was wounded. But also I would have gone there anyway. And all people who were injured, most of them were injured in the legs. And you saw youngsters limping and then being taken care of. Those who were less serious went to other hospitals, and those who were more serious were operated on.
I know of a young woman who is—who maybe she was there near the checkpoint, very near, and she was hit, and she might lose her leg. There is another woman—women participated. Many women were also near the checkpoint, very near the checkpoint, and were probably targeted because it was not—it was shooting by snipers. So this was the response of the army.
Later on, I understand that there was some—one of those stupid shooting to the air from the part of some Palestinians. We don’t know who. And this gave the army an excuse to say that, oh, the people they shot, they started the shooting, which is of course false.
AMY GOODMAN: Amira Hass, you have been covering the territories for decades. The word of a ceasefire coming through, with Secretary of State Kerry in Cairo, what are your thoughts on what it means? And what is Hamas calling for, and the Palestinian people, as well?
AMIRA HASS: You know, the truth is that I didn’t even follow it in the last few days, this, because it’s impossible to follow everything, and I try to be in contact with my friends in Gaza to get—to hear from them what is happening, and then to write. So I leave these political things a bit aside, especially in the last two, three days.
But in general, some things are evolving in the sense of the discourse of Palestinians about what demands should be. And it’s very interesting because the demands of Hamas started now after several years in power. They started to reconnect with the West Bank. And this is the big change. Probably they did it because they understood that Egypt is not—I mean, they have lost all of these relations with Egypt after the putsch against the Muslim Brothers. And this was one of their big mistakes, as I see, during—after they were victorious in the elections in 2006, strengthened their hold on Gaza, played into this fantasy that Gaza can be a separate entity and a state or a mini—or a quasi-state, and they can run like a government, actually repeating the mistakes of the PA before and now, and thus enhancing this disconnection between Gaza and the West Bank, the disconnection mostly of the communities of the—[no audio]
AMY GOODMAN: Amira?
AMIRA HASS: And the PA did the same thing—yeah. The PA did the same thing. So what is happening now, their discourse is: They demand to lift this closure and reconnect also with the West Bank. This is a big change.
AMY GOODMAN: And when you say "lift the closure," lift the siege, the blockade, explain what exactly that is.
AMIRA HASS: Gaza is not under siege since seven years only. I mean, Gaza has been under very severe terms of restrictions of movement and a disconnection from the world actually since the beginning of the ’90s. This is also something that people tend to forget, and I am always very angry about that. And Hamas made some kind of a political monopoly about it, saying that the closure started when they came to power. Yes, it intensified, but it started much earlier, because [no audio] to disconnect Gaza and the West Bank.
So now Hamas, still, when they talk about lifting the closure, they cannot really imagine opening to the West Bank, the [no audio] opening the borders for raw material, the passages to having raw material enter in Gaza, to have some economical life, and to have some connection to the world through Gaza—through Rafah. But other people, what they understand is that—and people in Gaza, what they understand, they want to go back and live and be Palestinians in this country and go back to the West Bank and have the connections with the West Bank. So this is a discourse developing or coming back to the fore.
We don’t know. I mean, this is the main—you know, like the Israeli minister of what’s so-called defense said just recently—he said, "Oh, yeah, I don’t mind that Abbas’ people will be guarding the Rafah checkpoint, but I will never let Abbas go back and rule Gaza," which means we don’t want Gaza and the West Bank be one unit. We don’t want it. I mean, the Israelis, the Israeli government doesn’t want it, and hasn’t wanted it since the beginning of the ’90s.
So, will this develop into a political discourse and political analysis, political strategy, that changes this? I cannot tell. It’s too early, because one of the things that we see missing is really—not a leadership, but a group which has the confidence of the people and that can organize and can lead now all this upsurge of anger and disgust with what is happening in Gaza and people who are fed up with this occupation. So, there is no group now, no reliable group, that can lead this and strategize this phenomenon. And this is what’s worrying me.
AMY GOODMAN: Amira Hass, I want to thank you for being with us, Ha’aretz correspondent for the occupied Palestinian territories. She’s speaking to us from Ramallah, where a mass protest took place just last night and are expected to continue today. This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we go back to Gaza City to speak to a doctor from al-Shifa Hospital about what’s been happening inside the hospital walls. Stay with us.
Doctor: After "Losing Everything," Gazans Cling to Hope That Conflict Will End Crippling Siege
We are joined from Gaza City by Dr. Belal Dabour of Shifa Hospital, the largest in Gaza. Dabour describes how Shifa has been stretched beyond capacity since the Israeli military assault began on July 8, struggling to treat thousands of victims amidst frequent power cuts and outdated equipment. He also discusses the hopes of his Gazan patients that the current conflict will bring an end to Israel’s eight-year siege. "After eight years, life has become intolerable," Dabour says. "People have no hope. They feel that the horizon for any prosperous future is [impossible] until the siege is lifted."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We return to Gaza City to talk to Dr. Belal Dabour. Dr. Dabour works at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip. It has only 11 beds in the emergency room and six operating theaters, which have been stretched beyond capacity since the Israeli military assault began on July 8th. Shifa medical staff have been struggling to treat thousands of injured despite frequent power cuts and often outdated equipment. Dr. Belal Dabour recently wrote a piece for The Electronic Intifada headlined "The Boy Who Clung to the Paramedic: The Story Behind the Photo."
Welcome to Democracy Now! Why don’t we start off on the effects of the Beit Hanoun U.N. school, that was a shelter, being shelled, 16 people killed, hundreds wounded? Have you seen any of those who were wounded at Shifa, Dr. Dabour?
DR. BELAL DABOUR: Yeah, this accident happened—this attack happened while it was my day off. However, the medical sources confirmed the death of 16 civilians. This is not the first attack of the kind. This is the attack number four in just four days which targeted U.N.-run school. And also these four days, about three attacks targeted hospitals and medical centers. Sixteen people died. That only just few, because yesterday more than 100 were killed.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Dabour, can you talk about, overall, the situation in Gaza and how you’re operating at the hospital?
DR. BELAL DABOUR: The Shifa Hospital is the largest hospital in Gaza Strip. It’s the hospital with the specialty centers. Doctors there are striving to deal with the cases. The staff has been divided into three teams, each team taking 24-hour shifts and then resting for about 48 hours, depending on the situation. Twenty-four/seven for 19 days now, there are casualties and bodies arriving at the hospital. The staff are stretched. The situation is very bad.
Let me speak about the night—last Sunday morning, when the Shejaiya massacre took place. Let me describe the scene at the operation room, for starting. At the operation room, six rooms were operating at the same time. The whole blood bank was moved to the theater, to the hole. There was a worker with this big bag of blood bags and the plasma, and just sitting there and distributing blood bags to the theaters, from number one to number six. And this continued all day long. A lot of people died inside the theater, in addition to the 60 people already whose bodies have been taken from the scene and the dozens others that are estimated to be stranded under the rubble. This is the Sunday.
However, my latest shift was two days ago, and I ended my shift Thursday morning. And from 3:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m., we received about five bodies in just five hours, in just one hospital. And also we received more than three dozen injuries, a lot of them children and one whole family. This is the situation. And the biggest problem is that it’s not getting any better. Day by day, it’s getting worse and worse. The numbers are including, and the medical supplies are shortening, the shortages increasing as we speak now.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Belal Dabour, can you tell us about the photo of the little boy clinging to the paramedic that has gone viral?
DR. BELAL DABOUR: Yeah. This boy was actually lucky, for two things. First of all, his injuries could have been very serious. He could have died immediately. But for some miraculous thing, he did not. Second of all, there was a photographer at the time, and he captured the right photo and in the right time. However, up until 12:00 a.m. yesterday, more than 200 children have been killed in just those 18 days, and more than 1,400 children have been wounded. Those were not very lucky to be caught on camera, and those of them who were caught on camera were not very lucky, by the dynamics of social media, to make their photos go viral. I just want to stress the point that this photo, it might be forgotten with time; however, this boy was lucky: At least some people will remember him for some time. But there are thousands. The misery of thousands is not being reported. The world is not hearing about them. They are just numbers. And we are not numbers.
This boy, as I wrote in my piece, he came to the hospital injured with massive shrapnels. He was agitated. He was caught up in a state somehow in the middle between being awake and asleep, because he was sleeping safely in his home, and suddenly his home was targeted. So, maybe he was in a dream or something, so he was like in the middle of hallucination, not completely aware of his surroundings. And that’s probably the reason why he kept screaming, "Bring my father! I want my father!" And that’s why he kept clinging to the paramedic and refused to let go. However, in order to save his life, we had to sedate him with some drug, and the doctors immediately operated on him. And just about this area, there was a shrapnel this big that has penetrated his neck about one or two centimeters away from a big vessel in this area. He was very lucky that this vessel was not hit.
I believe he survived. With all of the flow of casualties, I could not know neither his name or if he was united with his father or what was the fate of the rest of his family. I only saw three other of his brothers. Two of them are just below three years, and the other a teenager. Those should be fine now. But what happened to the rest of the family? Are they under the rubble? Or if they are uninjured, why they were not—why didn’t we see them at the emergency room? I am not aware. But maybe this is for the best, because a little mystery—people tend to like mystery. Some mystery to the story might make it stick in the memories for a little bit longer, before he gets forgotten with the massive amount of people killed here and the increasing numbers.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Belal Dabour, you are a doctor, but you are also a Palestinian living in Gaza right now. Can you describe your daily life?
DR. BELAL DABOUR: Our daily life is basically just sitting at the house waiting for the next to come. My area is now swarming with people who are taking shelter from the North Gaza. I live somehow closer to the west side of Gaza City. In my house, now there are currently three families, three uncles who evacuated from the north. This situation is the same for all of my neighbors. Therefore, you can find some life in the streets; however, from my house and to the east, the life is paralyzed. Only ambulances can pass through the streets. All aspect of life are paralyzed, of course. And in addition, this is in addition to the problems with electricity. Yesterday only 24 hours—only one hour per 24 hours, we had power supply; today, little less than three hours. And also, this is affecting the sewage pumping, and this is affecting the water supply. This situation is not in my area; it is in the whole of Gaza Strip.
Now I’m speaking, and behind me there are artillery shells falling on the area of al-Zeitoun, and to the right, the Shejaiya area is also, where the massacre happened, it’s still being bombarded at the moment. I’m speaking to you and hearing shells with my left ear. This continuous shelling has been nonstop for more than one week now. It started last Thursday, and now we are on Friday, so for eight days there are explosions nonstopping for 24/7.
AMY GOODMAN: What is the feeling of the Palestinian people in Gaza when the Israeli military says, if the rocket fire—if the Hamas rocket fire will stop, the thousands of rockets that are coming from Gaza, that they would begin to talk about a ceasefire? Is there support for the Hamas rockets stopping, Dr. Dabour?
DR. BELAL DABOUR: The Israeli side always try to sell the theory that this is a conflict between two states. However, we are not talking about a war between two states. We are talking about Gaza Strip, an area under occupation until now that is being besieged and bombed. And we are talking about Israel, a massive force with a extensive army and sophisticated weaponry, targeting such enclaved area, not only targeting them, but for eight years people have been deprived from all means to live. So, if you look at the situation this way, you will find that anything that comes from Gaza is a form of resistance, whether you agree with it or not. And this is what the people are saying.
Two days ago, when Khaled Meshaal, senior Hamas officer, he spoke and said that there will be no ceasefire unless there is lifting of the siege, I was at Shifa Hospital, and beside me were the families of the people who were injured—at the surgery department—who were injured from the Shejaiya massacre. And they kept screaming at Meshaal. They said that if he accepts, or if Hamas accepts that a ceasefire shall be achieved with no lifting of the siege, they will all start to be the enemies of Hamas, because they have lost everything, and they have no hope, so at least those sacrifices should not go to waste, should not go without the lifting of the siege. This is the minimum that the people have been asking. This is not what Hamas say. And if your correspondents just make a few interviews at the streets, I suspect that anyone will say otherwise.
AMY GOODMAN: And can you explain just the effect of this siege, what it is? In the United States, it is not as clear, when you talk about the siege, what the siege of Gaza means. When Israeli officials are interviewed, like, for example, Mark Regev, the spokesperson for the prime minister, when someone says Gaza being occupied, he says, "No, we left Gaza many years ago."
DR. BELAL DABOUR: Well, he can say whatever he says, but the United Nations still treats Gaza as an occupied strip. By the siege of Gaza, your guest before me said that Gaza has been besieged for decades now. And this is true. But for the previous eight years, the siege has taken the forms—have taken many forms. For four years, until 2010, the siege meant that there was absolutely no movement outside of Gaza Strip and that there were shortages of electricity, shortages—Israel denied entry of medicines, denied entry of most types of food. Israel used to calculate how much calories each person in Gaza should allow, and that calculation was about 2,100 calories per person. And this was published in Ha’aretz.
However, now the siege is taking another smarter form. For example, now we can get whatever medicines we want, speaking about the health sector. But they put a ban on the unity government. They put a ban on the movement of finances to the Gazan banks. They also crush the economy so that internal revenues are now up to zero. And then they say, "You can have whatever medicines you want." So the siege is continuous for eight years, but it’s taken many forms. However, one common manifestation of this siege is that now, after eight years, life has become intolerable, and people have no—they have no hope, and they feel that the horizon for any prosper futures for themselves or for the future is not seen, at least now, until the siege is lifted.
AMY GOODMAN: And if there is a ceasefire—you have, what, more than 2,600 homes that have been destroyed, thousands more that have been damaged. What happens if there’s a ceasefire?
DR. BELAL DABOUR: Yeah, let me tell you about the war in 2008. About 5,000 houses were completely destroyed. Those houses remained unbuilt, unreconstructed for about two years, until the tunnels solved some of the problem. Some construction materials started coming in through the tunnels. And then, after the tunnels started working and we started getting some construction materials, Israel allowed some other construction materials to get into Gaza through UNRWA. So for two years, people were staying at their relatives or at whatever shelter they could provide. This tragedy now, if the siege is not lifted, it shall be repeated again, and for God knows how long. It might continue forever until the siege is lifted, because now even the tunnels that were used to find temporary solution are gone by now.
AMY GOODMAN: You have a final comment, Dr. Belal Dabour. I’m seeing a tweet that’s coming right from the AP office where you are standing, overlooking Gaza City, that says large parts of Gaza City are now being shelled by artillery. Your final comment?
DR. BELAL DABOUR: My comment is that, as a doctor, if this situation was an illness, I would prescribe this medicine. As Dr. Mads Gilbert said, the best medicine is first, number one, stop the assault immediately; and, number two, stop the siege; and, number three, lift the occupation. But the most important now is for these massacres to stop, and number two is for the siege to be lifted, to allow the thousands of houses and the hospitals and the centers that were hit in this war, in addition to the previous inhumane circumstances, to allow them to be lifted at least. And then we can discuss number three, the lifting of the occupation. But number one, stop the killing immediately.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Belal Dabour, I thank you for being with us. I see that just behind your head there is smoke coming up. If you step—just shift aside, we will see what is directly behind you. That’s right. Dr. Belal Dabour, please stay safe—works at the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. His piece at The Electronic Intifada called "The Boy Who Clung to the Paramedic: The Story Behind the Photo."
That does it for the show. I’ll be speaking on Real Time with Bill Maher tonight on HBO, 10:00 Eastern Standard Time. Tomorrow night, I’ll be speaking on Martha’s Vineyard. Check our website at democracynow.org.
Headlines:
•U.N. School Shelling Kills 16 Civilians, Wounds 200 in Gaza
The Palestinian death toll from Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip has passed 815 as new attacks kill more civilians and spark the largest West Bank protests in decades. On Thursday, at least 16 civilians died and more than 200 were wounded when a United Nations shelter was bombed in the Gazan area of Beit Hanoun. Palestinian officials have blamed Israeli tank shelling, while Israel has suggested militant rockets were at fault. The United Nations has declined to accuse Israel directly, but UNRWA spokesperson Christopher Gunness strongly suggested Israeli shelling was responsible.
Christopher Gunness: "These are people who had taken shelter in a U.N.-designated area. The warring parties, particularly the Israelis, were given the precise GPS coordinates. They knew exactly what was going on there, and in spite of that, this has happened. We again say, 'Enough civilians, enough women, enough children.' They have suffered quite enough in this appalling conflict."
Overall, at least 119 people were killed Thursday in Israeli strikes on Gaza.
•2 Killed in West Bank’s Largest Protest in Decades
The attack in Beit Hanoun helped trigger the largest West Bank protest in years. More than 15,000 people were said to have marched from Ramallah toward Jerusalem. Two Palestinians were killed and more than 200 were wounded when Israeli soldiers fired live ammunition. More protests are happening in the West Bank today.
•Kerry Submits New Ceasefire Proposal
Secretary of State John Kerry remains in Egypt, where ceasefire talks are underway. The Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz reports Kerry has drafted a new ceasefire proposal and is waiting to hear back from Hamas via the Qatari and Turkish governments. Hamas has demanded the lifting of the seven-year blockade of Gaza as a condition for a ceasefire.
•Over 1,000 Protest U.S. Military Aid to Israel in NYC
Protests continue around the world in opposition to the Israeli assault on Gaza. In New York City, more than 1,000 people held a march Thursday to call for a suspension of U.S military aid to Israel.
Protester: "I’m really saddened that we, as Americans, are not able to stop the war machine. We’re not able to stop the money that’s being fueled into the state of Israel to commit all of these acts of genocide, all of these war crimes. And I’m also here as a Jewish person saying not in my name. We need to do a lot more action here in New York, because we here have a lot of power, actually, and we’re not doing enough to stop what’s going on."
•116 Killed in Mali Plane Crash
An Air Algérie flight has crashed in Mali, killing all 116 passengers on board. The plane reportedly lost contact with ground control after pilots reported several storms.
•Arizona Pauses Executions Following Botched Lethal Injection
Arizona says it will not carry out new executions pending an investigation into the botched lethal injection of a death row prisoner. Joseph Wood died Wednesday after a two-hour ordeal that saw him gasping for air, choking and snorting. He had been injected with a relatively untested two-drug combination. At a hearing on Thursday, state officials claimed Wood was never in pain. Wood’s attorneys have asked for an independent probe of what they call "the most prolonged bungled execution in recent history."
Richard Dieter of the Death Penalty Information Center said the U.S. prison system is experimenting with its death row prisoners.
Richard Dieter: "They’re experimenting with new drugs. Every state is varying the dosage, the mix. (The) first four executions this year were by four different drugs."
•Judge Strikes Down Colorado Same-Sex Marriage Ban
A federal judge has struck down Colorado’s same-sex marriage ban, ruling it is unconstitutional. It is the latest in a series of marriage equality rulings at the state level since last year’s Supreme Court decision overturning the Defense of Marriage Act. The ruling has been stayed pending an appeal.
•Iran Detains Journalists with U.S. Ties
Iran has detained four journalists, including three of U.S.-Iranian nationality. The group includes Jason Rezaian, Tehran correspondent for The Washington Post, and his wife Yeganeh Salehi, a reporter for the United Arab Emirates-based newspaper The National. The Committee to Protect Journalists is calling for their immediate release.
•Appeals Court Rejects Lawsuit Against Chiquita for Colombia Paramilitary Murders
A federal appeals court has dismissed a lawsuit against the produce giant Chiquita brought by thousands of Colombians for the murders of their loved ones at the hands of paramilitaries. Chiquita pleaded guilty in 2007 to giving funds to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, known as the AUC, a right-wing paramilitary alliance supported by top leaders and blamed for killing tens of thousands of people, most of them civilians, beginning in the late 1990s. Chiquita sought protection from the lawsuits in part by citing the 2012 Supreme Court decision limiting the ability of people outside the United States to sue corporations for human rights abuses in U.S. courts. The judge in the case sided with Chiquita, but victims say they plan to continue legal action through the Torture Victim Protection Act and Colombian law.
•Canadian Activists Deliver Water Convoy to Detroit
Activists from Canada have delivered a convoy of water to Detroit in a show of protest against the shutoff of water for thousands of residents. More than 14,000 households have seen their taps turned off over unpaid bills since April. The group Council of Canadians delivered trucks carrying hundreds of gallons of water to a protest in Detroit Thursday afternoon. Local officials recently approved a temporary 15-day moratorium on the shutoffs for residents to catch up on their bills. A group of activists have set up the website DetroitWaterProject.org that lets anonymous donors cover the bills of residents who cannot afford to pay.
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